Faded
by ThatBlazingLook
Summary: They say there are five stages of grief. But how does one grieve what never existed? In wake of Nora's passing, Barry and Iris must find a way through the complexity of losing a daughter not just in this life, but from any life, past, present or future. Will they still remember the daughter that was or does the speed force have other things in mind? Season 6.


_While I've been writing fanfics for years (on here but mostly unpublished in the notes section of my iphone), this is my first crack into the Westallen fandom. I've only been watching The Flash for about a year now but westallen really roped me in good so expect more from me soon. I wrote this before the airing of 6x01 so while not entirely cannon I think it's still true to the characters and their emotions during this time. There will be a few more chapters so stay tuned! _

_Also, I'll be posting more westallen such stuff and liveblogging (hopefully) with every new flash episode on my tumblr ** .com** if you care to check it out! _

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Soft sobs.

The only thing he could hear.

She sat curled against the dark tile, sobs growing in every breathe, quicker and quicker still, until her face was caked in tears.

He stood motionless, despite calls deep within his subconscious. He wanted nothing more than to lunge for the button beside him, to apologize, to hold her for as long as he could before she was...

And just then, the sobbing stopped. The distressed girl began to fade into the rigid wall behind her, breaking into pieces as if she were made of porcelain, filling the glass cage that held her. The brightness of the cage grew as the pieces spread, brighter and brighter. Body stiff, his mind screamed towards the light, begging it to stop, telling it he was sorry.

Suddenly, the brightness switched into darkness, darkness that grew small speckled spots and a faded streak in the shape of window panes.

He had regained mobility and his coarse hands immediately ran to his face, which was coated in a healthy layer of sweat. If it was not for everything else his brain was focused on, he would have commented on how ironic it was to have sweat so heavily laying still in bed when he had run several hundred miles at a time without so much as a bead.

Instead, his mind kept playing through the images he had just seen over and over again at hyper-speed. He did not need to fall back asleep for them to reenter in total clarity. He did not know how long he laid there, the sounds of sobs making his head ache, until his thoughts caught with a gentle touch to his forearm.

He looked down to see his wife's concerned, albeit wretchedly tired, eyes stuck on him. She did not move to speak.

"I'm alright, go back to sleep."

"Sleep". She riffed with jocular illusion.

Her dry sarcasm shook him out of his own heart, he turned towards her, now pleading her to speak.

"I keep expecting..." she bit her lip as it began to quiver "to suddenly forget... and I'm terrified. Because as painful as it is to live with what happened... I don't know what I would do if all we had of her was a - a book."

Suddenly Barry felt mute once again. He knew he didn't forget, his speed and his connection to the timeless void of the speed force kept him from that. It was the only reason he had started to lose his memories of the past in flashpoint. He was becoming human, with no origin story, no bolt of lighting, no dead parents, he had nothing connecting him to the speed force anymore. He remembered what that felt like, how hopeless he felt trying to cling to a reality that was no longer, how desperate he was that he let Thawne free - again.

What if Iris did forget? Would he be the only one to remember her? With her father's eyes and her mother's smile and her unwavering determination to set things right and leave a legacy all her own?

"You won't forget her. Because I wont forget her, and we'll find a way."

She sighed, gently closing her eyes, as if to squash a bad memory. Barry returned to staring at the ceiling, his eyes fixed.

Iris reached over and began to caress his forearm, until reaching down to grab his hand that laid squarely between them above the covers. His grasp was tighter than expected, more alert. She knew what was keeping him up, most likely, the same thing that had been keeping her. But even in the late night, when his thoughts should have at least been groggy, it was getting his full attention.

"Talk to me." She said softly.

He stared outward, unknowingly, before turning to give her a half hearted smile. "I'm okay, really." Her eyes were as soft as her hands, perhaps it was there dewiness from recent arise or most likely, just the look of someone, the only other person alive who could possibly understand any shred of what he was feeling. "I can't stop thinking about her either."

Iris bite her lip. "We have to take solace in the message she left. And know that we can carry out her legacy."

Barry just nodded softly.

"Barry I know these last few weeks particularly have been ... but she was smart and she knew, regardless, how much you loved her. You were her hero Barry, before she knew you were the flash and after everything that happened."

"She sacrificed herself..." he found himself saying this to a void, unsure if it was even out loud, "for me, so that I could have a future. How - how does a child...?"

Iris's eyes were misty now. But she'd never seen this look on Barry's face before. Maybe it was the lethargy or her coated eyes, but the only look she could register was shame.

"Barry -"

There was so much more he wanted to say but it caught in his throat as the word "hero" rang through his head like a church chime in his wife's demure voice. It was not the first time the title made him uneasy, the wormhole for one, all the death he had caused, the pain to the people he loved.

Nothing felt quite like this though. He didn't just feel unheroic, he felt inhuman. He had a strong desire to disassociate himself from his own body and yet, felt more grounded to it than ever. He was not "The Flash" or the "Masked Fighter of Central City" he was a father who had failed his daughter. He hadn't failed humanity, but he failed his most human role within it, supporting and protecting his child.

And as he looked over at his wife, her understanding eyes, he felt more ashamed than ever.

"I think I'm just gonna take a walk." He said as he began to remove himself from bed.

"Bare it's four in the -"

A whoosh. And he was gone.

He did not return that morning, as Iris readied for the day. She kept her phone close to her but she did not make a call. She kept looking at the front door, but she did not make moves towards it until she was on her way to her office. A small part of her wished for a fire in an abandoned building somewhere, big enough to need help but small and isolated enough no one got hurt, just something that sprung everything into action. The mundane activity she had been doing left too much room for her mind to wander. Through the last 6 months, the girl in her jacket, the man no longer under lock, and the one who has been taking a "walk" since daybreak.

Washing her face, making coffee, slipping on shoes, it all felt too normal. She had lost a child. A child who hadn't even been born, conceived, imagined, but her child all the same. She hadn't raised her... and yet, she had. Whatever she had missed in the first 27 years, without Iris and Barry, she would have never existed. It didn't make any sense to feel the way she did about what had been a total stranger all but 6 months ago. But there was a part of her subconscious that knew this separate, or future, life that would lead to those moments. Carrying her, delivering her, teaching her to walk, to talk, to think. Maybe it was the way Nora called her "mom" with such ease, even in their darker days early on her arrival. She didn't feel as though "mom" was a title for her, as if it were all a game, but the way she spoke it she made her believe it.

Upon returning from grabbing a sweater from her bedroom she heard keys rumbling in her padlock laden front door. A moment later her husband appeared, looking more disheveled than when he had rushed out of bed, his five o'clock shadow glowing against the dim foyer light. The couple made eye contact from the door to the stairs, both opening their mouths for delicate words, when a buzzing erupted from both of their pockets.

One look upon Iris's face and she felt a familiar whoosh of air, a jostling motion and she was suddenly back in front of the monitors of Star Labs.

"Glad I came in early today" Cisco said from a surprisingly far distance from her or any computer system. "Who thought wheely chairs were the right move for this room?"

"Barry it looks like there's a grand theft auto out of the dealership on 57th." Iris tapped along her dashboard in a familiar fashion. "CCPD is still several minutes out."

"Psh do people still think a sports car is faster than the flash just because it's 8 in the morning?" Crisco rang in.

Iris could feel Cisco's attempts at normalcy, his tone gentler then usual amidst his albeit, typical, jokes. She knew he meant well and that's the only reason she didn't punch him in the arm.

"Barry he's headed into the tunnel, if you don't stop him before I'm seeing high change of a massive pileup. Cisco can you turn the traffic lights on the way to the tunnel?" Iris asked.

"On it."

But there did not seem to be a need, as shortly after Cisco manned traffic control, the car veered off the road instead, hopping haphazardly into the mildly populated park that had once been beside him. Barry, who had been preparedly creating a vortex to decelerate the vehicle, had been thrown off course as well. His eyes instead became fixed on the child's playground directly in front of the target.

His vortex creation veered course, cutting tares in grass instead of concrete as Barry tried to keep up with the swerving car. Mere seconds later was the horse-powered car pulled to stop and its driver thrown from the vehicle. It was not deceleration that had been the culprit of the throw, but two red gloves.

"What, you think your life is so much above everyone else's you don't even think about the people you could have killed in the process?! Huh? All for a little joy ride?"

Barry was standing over him now, a man now defenseless and disoriented, his figure getting closer and, seemingly, angrier with every step.

"I wasn't gonna hurt anybody -" the man pleaded at the face of the hero.

"You think you choose whether you get you hurt someone or not?" He was screaming now, his hands finding them to the man's collar, yanking him to his level. Onlookers began to watch from a distance. "No, your reckless behavior is what chooses! You wanted a car that was worth endangering the lives of all these people to get. All of these children -"

"Flash!" A voice rang out from across the park. Barry turned to find Ralph, or rather, elastic man, standing among a crowd of park goers, parents and children among them. "You gonna cuff him or...?"


End file.
